


Banner

by Bad_Wolf



Series: Avengers [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-16 22:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bad_Wolf/pseuds/Bad_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before they went their separate ways, they had to gather one last time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Banner propped his back on the wall and listened carefully to the speech being given. He spotted Rogers sitting stiffly in the front row, Banner could imagine Rogers wanting to be standing with the rest of the guard. He would want to have one of the adorned rifles in his hands and give the mournful salute with the rest of the guard. There was Miss Potts, she had her head bowed and was twisting a napkin in her hand. The pain in her eyes was evident, a few tears escaped her napkin. Banner quickly bowed away from the dark canopy, clutching the watch in his pocket.   
A willow became his refuge, the long tendrils swept the grass and dirt. He crouched there, feeling the bubbling and frothing from the other guy teem towards the surface of his skin. Not here, grimly he clutched at the watch and concentrated on the rough edges of the etched silver. A laser would have prevented the roughened edges. It would have created perfectly smooth concentric circles and...  
The other guy heeled onto his haunches and gazed at him balefully, but still ready to leap. Banner let out his breath in a gust. A branch caught him and he somehow managed to get entangled in it. Finally, he simply snapped the stalk and unwound the thin willow’s branch from his neck. If only it had been that easy, thought Banner ruefully; the other guy growled threateningly and Banner let the branch fall into a coil at his feet.   
A murmur of voices swelled behind him, Banner saw a procession of people leaving the tent. There was a whole squadron of officers who must’ve been his coworkers, friends...  
Banner sighed, the willow rustled its leaves. The wind picked up again and they viciously whipped him in the face. “Alright, I’m going,” Geez, not even the trees like being near me.  
“Banner! You’re going to get left behind and be late. Not that it would be a problem, you could just get mad and then everyone would have to make room for you at the dinner table.” He couldn’t help it, Banner chuckled softly and wound his way through the people towards the dark red car; most of the people gave him a wide berth. That kind of behavior no longer stung him; you wouldn’t see a zebra foal chumming it up with a hungry crocodile would you? “I’m coming, is there even any room for me in that sport’s car of yours?”   
“Eeehhh, Miss Potts can just walk. And as long as you don’t turn angsty.” Miss Potts gave Banner a tearful smile and shook her head at the man she was in love with. Sometimes he can be so cruel without meaning to, but she measured the smile he directed towards Bruce and just shook her head at his grinning face. “There’s room for all of us, hop in, Bruce.” Banner marveled at how easily she allowed him to climb into the tiny car and sit behind her. Most people would have cringed at the notion. He sat sideways on the plush pleather seat and buckled himself in when the car revved onto the dirt drive.  
Banner looked back, few people were still standing under the tent. A woman, a couple of men, Rogers, and Fury. The soil had been neatly patted down and a score of white, red and blue wreaths lay on the ground. “It’s best not to look back too often Banner. It’s no good for the future.” Of course it wasn’t, he’d been battling with his past and never won, “Doesn’t mean the past isn’t bewitching. Funny thing is that the past always seems to be changing, depending on what you’re looking for or who’s telling the story. It always seems to change itself through the mere fact that we’re trying to understand it.”


	2. In the Lab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce and Tony working in the lab

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any ideas for one-shots, feel free to suggest. Enjoy.

A small clinking sound woke him.  
“Drink up, we’re not done yet.”  
Banner rubbed his face, the edge of the computer slate had dug into his cheek and he could feel a small groove.

“What time is it?” He slurped the coffee, pleased to taste the hazelnut and dark chocolate. He sighed in relief when the warm coffee hit his stomach, “Maybe we should stop for now. We can work on it tomorrow, Tony.”

Stark glanced at him in surprise and turned back to digging around one of the cabinets, “It’s already tomorrow. You’ve wasted four hours of it with sleeping. Ah, here we go. A little pick me up to the caffeine.” Tony took Bruce's mug and splashed some brown pungent liquid into it until it almost overflowed, “Here. Drink. Don’t ask what it is because I bought it off the black market and it might just be vinegar.”

 

“I can’t imagine you walking around a black market," Banner took a cautious sip and found the alcohol, or whatever it was, made him break out into a sweat. Tony took a giant gulp of his coffee and spat most of it out, “Pahh! I think we just drank gasoline." Tony grimaced and twisted his face in disgust. 

Banner ignored him and walked over to one of the monitors, enlarging a graph and absently slurping more of the coffee concoction, “Is this from the park?”

Tony scrutinized the graph, “Yeah. See that hitch? Must’ve been when the Odinsons left.”

"You've been reading up on the mythology?"

Tony shrugged, "Normally I don't condone religion in any form but-"

Banner shook his head, “Thor and Loki left weeks ago. And this graph...it's recent.”

Tony opened his mouth, took a sip of his coffee instead and tossed the rest into the sink,” I've only been looking at ones from 24 hours past the time they left. When was this one taken?”

Banner enlarged the axis, ”Couple hours ago. And why would the energy residues still be hanging around even if it wasn’t so recent? It’s a public park. The initial readings that Ms. Foster recorded in New Mexico showed that the...rainbow road’s...” he winced at the terminology,” energy dissipated within twelve hours. And that place is a desert. The park shouldn’t hold residues for any longer than, say, three hours. ”  
Tony squinted at the graph a moment longer, and a terrible thought wormed its way into his thoughts.  
Slate in hand, Tony flung the graph onto the main frame and lay the most recent graph over the original one when Thor took the tesseract away, “Shit.”  
Banner took a giant gulp of his coffee and felt it sizzle down to his stomach, “Should we call up Director Fury now or at a decent hour?”

Ton grimaced, “Naw. Let Pirate Pete catch his Zzz’s, we can trace this by ourselves. Maybe if we root this thing out they’ll let us back into headquarters.”

Humming, Banner approached a screen with a map of the Earth, a smattering of blue dots covered the surface “Are these the locations of the different rips? ” Tony nodded and continued typing away at a computer, forehead scrunched.

“Maybe we should tell S.H.I.E.L.D. about these, it would help us get back into their labs and we could use some of their scientists, I don’t think we should mess around with anything that’s come back through. At least, not alone.”

Tony snorted, “You know perfectly well that none of those people,” he waved around a small green screwdriver, "are a match for us. We could- I don’t know, walk into their lab and in twenty minutes have the mainframe under our- Oh.”

Bruce smiled from behind his coffee mug, “I’ll send Director Fury an e-mail later, meanwhile let’s work out where these energy residues lead."


End file.
